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Peppery Paprika.

The need for a small jar of paprika roughly coincides with the “7-year locust” (really cicada) cycle.  That is, about once every 7 years I manage to use up a jar of paprika and have to go out to buy another.  The cicadas hit here last summer.  Sure enough this winter, the jar ran dry.  I’m sure paprika has many more uses than I’ve found.  So far my only need has been for deviled eggs and French onion soup.  That’s why a bottle lasts so long.

Fortunately, among the limited spices available at the local ALDI is paprika.  That saved me the trouble of visiting another store and most likely saved me a couple of dollars in the process.

Traditionally the paprika I’ve purchased has added a nice color to the food where it’s been used, but only a mild flavor.  Over many cicada cycles I’ve read that paprika varies considerably in the amount of flavor and heat present in the spice.  I was pleasantly surprised that the ALDI paprika was one of those tastier and hotter varieties.  It was certainly not overwhelming hot, with a heat level of around ground black pepper for comparison.  The taste right out of the jar is a medium strong earthy flavor.  Of course it really wasn’t meant to be eaten out of the jar.   When combined into the French onion soup recipe, it provided an interesting contrast to the general sweetness of the onions and richness of the butter and cheese.

At 99 cents for a larger spice jar than is usually found at the local supermarket, this is not only tastier but a pretty good deal.  The only downside to a jar which is about 50% bigger is that I’m going to have to put my cicadas on a 10 year cycle.

Price 99 cents – 3.75 ounce jar  (106 g)

Tags: aldi, cooking, food, paprika, price, review, reviews, spice, stonemill

This entry was posted on 02/18/2012 at 10:00 and is filed under ALDI, Recipes, food, cooking and related items. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.